


Nothings All Black, but nothing's all white

by thecat_13145



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Child Death, Grief/Mourning, Minor Character Death, Miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-22
Updated: 2012-07-22
Packaged: 2017-11-10 12:04:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/466066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecat_13145/pseuds/thecat_13145
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes there's one than one way two things can both be true. Spoilers for Batman 10 and 11</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothings All Black, but nothing's all white

“Martha!”

He stood in the doorway, almost filling it. She ignored him, just as she had ever since that night. Thomas took a deep breath and tried again.

“Martha.” He took a step forward. “If you want to blame me for what happened, then fine, I can live with that.” He wasn’t completely sure about that, but he was certainly he could try. “But Bruce needs his mother.”

He took another step. He was standing behind her now, so close he could have touched her back without even trying. It would probably be the most contact they’ve had for five years.

“Your son needs you, Martha. He needs his mother.”

“They both do.” She whispered, softly. She didn’t even turn in his direction, her eyes remaining fixed on the small child in the bed. He can read the name scribbled on the chart, John Doe.

He knows that the child is in a permanent Vegative condition. That even if they could treat that, the damage done is so severe that the child would probably spend the rest of his life in institutes. 

Just like Thomas Wayne Junior, the baby who lived for less than 12 hours.

It’s a coincidence, but he’s being a doctor long enough to have encountered stranger ones.

“Martha Please.” He whispered, the sob almost breaking his voice. “If I could go back in time, undo that night, then I would do. In a heartbeat.”

It was what the Emergency room doctors call a “Saturday Night special”. A drunken driver and an arguing couple. He doesn’t even remember what the argument was about; just that he had taken his hands off the wheel for five seconds, maybe even less. That he wasn’t concentrating, that was why he didn’t see the other car until it was too late.

Smashed right into the passenger side. In one sense, they were lucky they got away as lightly as they did, the doctor in him knows that, but when he closes his eyes, all he can see is the blood running down Martha’s forehead, Bruce asking from the back what was wrong with mummy?

“But I can’t.”

Couldn’t unsign the forms that gave the doctors permission to induce labour. 

“A chance to save them both.” They’d said. Martha’s skull had being fractured, she had needed the operation to survive, an operation they couldn’t do on a pregnant woman.

But the accident had being more severe than they thought. Or maybe the baby had already being damaged in other way.

He’d never even got to hold him. Martha had never even seen him.

Thomas Wayne Junior had slipped away after just 11 and a half hours of life in an incubator. The autopsy had being unable to determine if it was the accident which killed the child, or whether he would have being born dead away.

A week later Martha had woken up, and he had had to tell her that he killed their son.

“If you want a. Divorce,” he said, almost stumbling over the word. “Then I’ll give it to you.”

Most women would have probably already asked for one, hell so would most men. For the last five years, they’ve being strangers who live in the same house, and given the size of Wayne Manor sometimes not even that.

He’s never being more grateful for Alfred, whose kept things going, protects Bruce while all this is going on.

His son, now nearly 8, is a perceptive child, but he’s still a child. He probably thinks it’s normal to almost never see his parents together. To have a mother who is almost never truly there, even when she is physically there, and a father whose always working. But they haven’t got long before Bruce realises something is up.

“I’ll even say that it was my fault, but don’t blame Bruce for what happened. He needs you.”

He looks down at the child. Physically there is a resemblance between him and this child, but Patrick Morgan Wayne was noted womaniser and serial adulterer. And Alan Wayne, his grandfather wasn’t much better.

Thomas has almost reached the stage where he’d be more surprised to be in a room in Gotham where there wasn’t someone who bore some sort of resemblance to him.

The child might very well be his half nephew or something, there’s a Wilas Todd in slums who he knows for a fact is, and everyone says (in hushed voices) that Janet Jackson is the virtual double of himself at the same age. He’d offer to adopt this child, if he thought it would help.

But he knows that it would at best be a temporary solution. At worse...he doesn’t want to think what the loss of a second child might do to Martha.

He could swear that the blue eyes beneath the lashes flicker, as though he’s watching them both.

But that’s impossible.

He’s spoken with Dr. Patrick Dundee who’s the chief of staff here, has known him since they were both at medical school. Patrick was sympathetic, but brutal. Almost no higher cerebral functions, “basically Tommy,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “We’re waiting for this kid to die, because we can’t make him live.”

“I need you.”

She turned, china blue eyes fixing on him.

“I didn’t want to call him Thomas.”

He blinked. “What?”

“I didn’t want him to have junior in his name.” She paused, chewing on her lip. “His name was Roderick.”

After her father.

He wants to apologise. To explain that he got the boxes mixed up on the form and just sighed his name in both of them, but he can’t force the words past his throat.

“I’m sorry. I’ll give you Roderick.” He promised, softly. There’s absolutely no reason not to believe it will happen. After all, Martha was pregnant with Bruce when they married, and the accident didn’t change that.

Martha looks at him sadly, like she did when she first left him alone with Bruce and came back four hours later to find them both still in exactly the same position as she left them. Like there’s something wrong with him that he doesn’t realise.

She reaches up, stroking his face. It feels like a crocus forcing its way through the snow, a thing of hope.

He smiles. 

“Bruce has being asking to go to the Zorro film in the town.” He said, “What do you say we go tonight?” 

Fini


End file.
